Is there an advantage to the 1" sensor? Opinions requested.

ProfHankD wrote:

Yes and no. The Nikon 1 line 1" sensors are a lot smaller than APS-C, but that isn't relevant -- it's just a matter of sensel size. Here's a little list of sensel sizes and approximate lens resolutions needed for Nyquist sampling:

• Sony NEX-5 (14MP) : 5um, 50 line pairs per mm
• Sony NEX-6 (16MP): 4.8um, 52 lppmm
• Sony NEX-7 (24MP): 3.9um, 64 lppmm
• Nikon 1 V1 (10MP): 3.4um, 74 lppmm
• Nikon 1 V2 (14MP): 2.9um, 87 lppmm

Very few lenses designed for full-frame 35mm resolve even 50lppmm at decent contrast across the entire (cropped) frame even at their best aperture. This doesn't mean IQ isn't slightly better with more pixels sampling, but it does mean the difference between IQ of crops giving the same angle of view will not be anywhere near as big as the pixel counts alone suggest. Most lenses are pretty much mush at smaller than the NEX-7 sensel size....